AI and Attention Markets

To create value in the Attention Markets, businesses will rewire by deploying technology at scale. A clear digital transformation strategy that focuses on specific domains and is enabled by a set of specific capabilities is crucial for companies in Latin America and the Caribbean to compete and survive. Attention is a resource in the Age of Digital Distraction. Some argue that “attention” may not bear all of the indicia of a resource.

However, at a minimum, access to the public’s mind – bears some of them; it is both scarce in societies overburdened by data, and necessary to create demand for novel products, and brand reputation. For these reasons according to Tim Wu, at Columbia Law School, it is now typical in the media and technology markets, to speak of an “attention economy” and of competition in “attention markets.” Markets where rather than cash, we pay with attention.

The information society is one in which data is the purest source of added value. The race is on to train AI assemblages on reservoirs of data and materials in shadow libraries that offer access to articles and texts that are out of print, hard to obtain, and those that are paywalled. Led by Baidu, Tencent, Facebook, and Google, these data juggernauts have adopted a model of “attention merchants.” They capture our attention with free information, services like email, and entertainment, and our attention is resold to advertisers.

In the early 2000s, web merchants minimized advertising. For example, Facebook ran ads only to cover liquidity shortfalls. It did not pursue revenue maximization in the short term. This strategy gave Facebook an advantage over Myspace. However, Facebook had other advantages – better code, and more “real” users. However, its pricing strategy should not be ignored.

These modern-day data behemoths supersede previous attention merchants. In the process of capturing attention, they garner immense amounts of personal information about each of us. This is how we can get tailored recommendations on films, places to visit, and products to purchase on our news feed and other channels. The value of this personal information exceeds any revenue from advertisements. In the Attention Markets, we cease to be customers, as our attention becomes a product.

This business model delegates authority by decoupling decision-making to technological artefacts. The central view here is that AI assemblages and artefacts are not a new form of intelligence, but an unmatched form of agency. We freely cede part of our reasoned agency when we embrace AI and its smart agency.

Affirming the principle of autonomy in the context of AI requires a balance between the authority we delegate and the power we retain for ourselves in the Age of Digital Distraction. This rise of the “attention economy” and competition in “attention markets” requires deep and careful interrogation as information organisms and smart cities embrace e-commerce tactics and AI assemblages.

Nowhere else is this more vivid than in London’s “night economy.” London’s night-time economy is estimated to contribute over £40 billion to the UK’s total night-time economy. This is approximately forty per cent of the total value of the night-time economy. London’s night-time economy supports 723,000 jobs, which accounts for one in eight jobs in the capital of England. To blackout Digital Distraction and drive economic competitiveness a digital pause has started on the dance floor at selected clubs.

A policy of no phones on the dance floor is enforced in some locations, while others require patrons to place a sticker over camera lenses. On the one hand, some argue that this prohibition raises concerns about personal freedom and the right to choose how we engage with our surroundings. On the other hand, others seek experiences where they lose their inhibitions and enjoy a sense of freedom and privacy. The emphasis is on living in the moment rather than recording it for posting and posterity.

This is a growing trend at gigs with performers requesting that fans pop their mobiles into sealed pouches. Others reward them for keeping their devices out of view with free bottles of wine. Publications and posts on LinkedIn and social media platforms, including those allowing users to create and share short videos, are all broadcasts. Broadcasting in all of its forms is an audience aggregation activity. The scarcest resource will never be ideas, accomplishments, or even talent: it’s attention.

Attention is something akin to currency, or at least something that consumers spend, and as such something that market competitors “harvest.” The markets that attention harvesters are in have attracting attention as the principal goal.

Attention markets in Latin America and the Caribbean open a path to radically different models. With the ascension of smart agency and attention markets, we become the inheritors of an infosphere that we will co-create. It is a project that is the sum of the actions taken by every citizen online and offline, digital and analogue.

This revolution is not in factories. It is not industrial. It is in the infosphere. It includes offline, analogue and digital spaces, cyberspace, information entities and assemblages, information agents, and their projects, interactions, and mutual connections. It involves transferring authority to algorithms and artefacts to attention markets.